The use of a hand-held survey or detection probe to survey oneself, or another surface, is commonly referred to as “frisking”. One error committed by radiation workers and emergency responders when using a hand-held detection or survey probe to frisk, e.g., survey for radiation, is moving the probe too quickly over the surface. This problem is often referred to as “turbo-frisking”. Such an error may allow dangerous radioactive contamination to go undetected because the probe did not have adequate time over the contaminated area to detect the radiation present.
Another error committed while frisking, e.g., surveying for radioactive contamination, is not holding the probe close enough to the surface being surveyed to adequately detect potential contamination. This type of error often occurs when surveying for alpha radiation due to the relatively short travel distance of alpha particles. This error may also occur when surveying for beta radiation.
Still another problem encountered when surveying is accidentally contacting the surface with the survey probe. Such accidental contact may transfer radioactive contamination to the probe, which generally causes all future readings to be in error.
Typically, radiation workers and emergency responders are trained to maintain a proper probe speed and distance while surveying for radioactive contamination. Currently, there is no automated device that provides accurate feedback to the operator with respect to proper survey speed and probe distance.